Charge your batteries up over the next week so that you can start the new year with a bang!

So what happened? Well, last month I removed the Feedburner plugin which redirects the feed to Feedburner and replaced it with a redirection code in the main htaccess file. This allowed me to link to each authors unique RSS feed, a feature which WordPress has by default but is unfortunately turned off when you use the FeedSmith Feedburner plugin.

A few days later I went away for a weeks holiday with 10 friends to Skiathos in Greece, to attend a friends wedding in the neighbouring city of Volos in the mainland. The hotel didn’t have any internet connections nor was there any internet cafes around so I didn’t take my netbook.

Unknown to me, I hadn’t set up the redirect correctly so when I returned I noticed the Blogging Tips feed hadn’t been updated in 10 days. Feedburner isn’t always the most accurate website but it showed a drop of around 500-600 subscribers, so clearly a lot of people thought that the site was just no longer being updated and removed us from their newsreader (shame on them!! haha).

New Hosting Company

Around the same time I removed the Feedburner plugin, I moved to a new hosting company. I noticed a big drop in traffic but I put this down to the issue with Feedburner. However, once the issue was resolved I was a bit more suspicious as to why traffic was lower than normal.

I checked the stats from my server but nothing indicated that there was any downtime. The hosting company couldn’t see anything wrong either. It wasn’t until I released our new ebook last week that I knew something was definitely up as several newsletter readers emailed me saying that they could not download the file or view the site.

So tonight I asked Blogging Tips followers on Twitter to email me if they were having problems viewing the site. Big thanks to Igor, skibee and Craig Parker; who helped me and my hosting company figure out what was wrong.

Apparently, the DNS zones of several of my sites were a bit messed up when I migrated to my new host. This meant that some parts of the world could view the site fine but others couldn’t (it appears to be very random as my friend who lives just 5 miles away from me had problems viewing the site too!).

It might take 24 hours for the DNS to update in all areas. If you are still having problems viewing the site after that, please email me at info at bloggingtips dot com and I will work with you in resolving any problem there is

I apologise to those who have been having problems accessing the site. Hopefully everything should be working fine now.

thanks,
Kevin

p.s. This is a lesson to anyone who wants to make a major change to their blog before going on holiday!!

However, I recently decided to downgrade from a dedicated server. When I purchased my server two years ago I had several more websites than I have now. One of them was a large forum with around 25,000 members and required a lot of ram, cpu time and web space. I sold this website last year though I kept my server because it was so quick.

Looking back, this was probably a bad decision. I was using less than 10gb of a 250gb hard drive, clearly I was paying more than I needed to.

Therefore I contacted several hosting companies with a list of questions about their managed virtual servers, particularly about performance as this was one of the reasons I kept my server so long. I also spoke to WiredTree about this to see if they had a suitable solution for me.

For me, the way a hosting company replies to an email with a list of questions gives some indication to the level of support you can expect from the company. The hosting company which did repy quickly and with a long detailed reply was ServInt. David James from ServInt explained exactly what package he thought I needed and why. He also added that I could downgrade and upgrade to a different package whenever I wanted, though he said that it would be best to see how much ram and cpu time my websites use up first.

So I decided to go with their Signature VPS package. This package comes with 45gb of hard drive space, 1.5TB of bandwidth and guaranteed ram of 1.5gb. Though the package also allows up to 3gb of burst ram to cope with high traffic spikes, which suits my current situation perfectly as my previous server had 2gb of ram.

The transfer of all my websites took less than an hour. First impressions of ServInt are very good with all my questions being answered within a few minutes. I am going to review how much ram and cpu time my websites use up over the next few weeks and may downgrade or upgrade accordingly.

I would like to thank WiredTree for the fantastic level of support I have received over the last two years. I think this is the first time I have ever left a hosting company on positive terms, previously I have always left because support or performance was before par. This was certainly not the case with WiredTree.

In the future I may have to upgrade again if traffic increases in my websites or I develop another high traffic site. In the mean time, I am very happy to have reduced my monthly hosting bill from $269 a month to $89. I’m also looking forward to working with ServInt.

As I mentioned above, I will be reviewing the performance of this hosting package over the next few weeks. If you notice BloggingTips being any slower please let me know as it might suggest that I need to upgrade to the next VPS package.

So for those of you reading this via RSS, here is a comparison of the old theme and the new :

Old Design

* If any of you are fans of the old them theme then please drop by and visit Blog Themes Club where you can purchase the theme directly for only $19.

New Design

Made by Guerrilla

Our new theme was designed by Mike Smith from Made by Guerrilla. Mike contacted me a week or so about a redesign of Blogging Tips as a way of promoting brand awareness of his new brand (a relaunch of his existing site Blog Theme Machine).

I had sent some emails about a redesign of Blogging Tips to a few designers over the last few months but nothing had come to fruition. Mike showed me his previous work and I was very impressed so we agreed to move forward with a redesign for the blog.

The header is much more professional looking though the logo has been reduced slightly to allow a 468×60 banner to be integrated. I had originally wanted to integrate a larger 728×90 banner in though this was removed from the final design as it pushed the main content area too far down the page.

The information shown on the sidebar of the new design is more or less as before. We have added a popular articles dropdown list and we have also utilized Sarahs ‘What Others Are Saying‘ plugin to show the latest posts from other great blogging related blogs.

The comment area now allows threaded comments, something which I unfortunately never had in the previous design. I’m sure you will all find that useful

All in all, the same information is being displayed on the site however I believe it’s easier to navigate and easier on the eye too.

Mike was an absolute joy to work with. He’s a fantastic designer who knows CSS inside out and I would recommend anyone who is looking for a unique design for their blog to shoot Mike an email at Made by Guerrilla.

Anyone who uses the coupon code “BLOGGINGTIPS” during the month of July will receive 20% off their blog design.

You can read more about my experience with Mike here.

What Say You?

I hope you all love the new design. I appreciate that change isn’t always welcome but I’m sure anyone who has hesistations about the new theme will grow to love it over time.

As always, I’d love to hear your opinions on it. Praise wanted, constructive criticism more tham welcome but please leave the trash talk at home

Thanks,
Kevin

I have spoke to my host about this and they can’t see anything which suggests that the site is down. Therefore I would really appreciate some feedback from you all.

If BloggingTips has been down at any point in the last few months for you can please leave a comment and let me know :

• What kind of error it was – i.e. was it a blank page or an ‘Address Not Found’ error.
• What time it happened. It would really help us to know what time it happened for you so can you please let us know roughly what time it happened and what timezone you are in.
• Any other information which you think would help would be appreciated.

I apologise to those who have been unable to view the site at any time. Rest assured, it’s something that I will do my best to resolve. Again, I really appreciate any feedback that will help fix any errors that are occuring.

Thanks,
Kevin

By following ‘BloggingTipsCom‘ on Twitter you will :

• Be able to get updates about the latest posts on BloggingTips directly to your Twitter Account
• Get to know us better by by adding @BloggingTipsCom to your tweets (We will do our utmost to reply to everyone)
• Take part in exclusive Twitter only BloggingTips competitions
• Get a follow in return! Yes that’s right, we gurantee to follow every reader who follows us!

You can also get updates about the latest threads from the Blogging Tips Forums by following ‘BloggingForums‘ via Twitter.

So you should :

• Follow BloggingTipsCom via Twitter for updates about the latest BloggingTips posts and official site news
• Follow BloggingForums via Twitter for updates of the latest threads from the Blogging Tips Forums
• Follow BloggingTipsCom & BloggingForums via Twitter if you want updates about the latest blog posts and forum posts on BloggingTips

Some of you may be wondering why there is two Twitter accounts however I believe this setup is better as not everyone will want updates from the forum and many people will not want updates for the blog so this setup should please everyone

If you have any questions, please let me know

Kevin

Unfortunately, due to a busy work schedule and involvement in a lot of new projects, Yuwanda is moving onto pastures new.

So I hope you will all join me in wishing Yuwanda the best of luck in the future. I hope the blogging community will see her again sometime in the future

Related Link : Inkwell Editorial

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!

You can see Blogging Tips posts in the Blogging Section. In this section you will also find Lorelle on WordPress and other new members Webmaster Source, Putting Blogs First and Idiot’s Guide to Blogging. According to last weeks acceptence list, regular Blogging Tips author Amanda Fazani’s fantastic site Blogger Buster has also been accepted so we’ll be in good company

There is a private discussion forum for 9Rules members too so hopefully it will prove to be a good place to network and meet other like minded bloggers.

If you recently applied to the network and haven’t been accepted as yet I recommend visting the 9Rules Blog as that’s where they are posting updates.

Link : 9Rules

Thankfully, I found a script which works much better and blends in perfectly with the website and forum. You can see the new blog directory here.

Submission to the directory is free and it’s very easy to submit your blog too. All you have to do enter the name of your blog and provide a description and the URL. You also have the option of adding a thumbnail of your blog too. For more details on how to submit your blog to the directory please visit this page.

The directory won’t bring you a huge amount of traffic but it might bring you the odd visit every now and then so if you have some time please feel free to submit your blog.

If you have any questions regarding the directory please let me know

• The BloggingTips Blog Directory
• How to add a link to the Blog Directory

The idea is simple : every week I will post the URL of a blog with a brief description about it and a few sentences from the blog owner about what they believe needs to be improved. BloggingTips readers will then leave a comment giving feedback on the blogs design and content with some suggestions as to how to market the blog too. The most helpful and constructive commenter will win a prize.

I hope that all of you will enjoy this. Even if you are not familar with the blog or the subject it covers I think that you will benefit from taking part in the critique as I’m sure many of the suggestions will be applicable to your blog.

The first critique will be published tomorrow however if you would like your blog to be considered for a critique please let me know. More information about the critique can be found at the link below.

If you have any suggestions about this please let me know

Link : Reader Blog Critique

What will the Newsletter cover?

You might be asking why you should subscribe to the newsletter if you are already subscribed to the RSS feed. This is a question I also asked myself when I first considered the newsletter as I didn’t want to exclude regular RSS subscribers however, at the same time, I wanted to offer something different and unique to newsletter subscribers.

First of all, I haven’t as yet decided on how regular the newsletter will go out though it will likely be on a weekly basis.

The newsletter will include

• A quick summary of the posts from the last week at Blogging Tips
• Important news and views from the Blogging World within the last week
• Updates and news regarding Blogging Tips and the Blogging Tips Forums
• Rumours, Tips and Links
• Ideas, rants and funny situations

In many respects the newsletter will be more personal than regular posts on Blogging Tips ie. it will be less formal. With regards to rumours, I sometimes get emailed or messaged about some things which I don’t post about because there isn’t much hard evidence to support it therefore I may include some of these in the newsletter.

The format the newsletter follows may change as I want it to evolve along with the site and along with what subscribers want to see in the newsletter. I do have some ideas for the newsletter already but I’ll post these in the newsletter itself I’ll post the first newsletter next week so if there is anything you want included in it please let me know.

How to Subscribe

All you have to do is enter your email address in the form below. I have added 3 other fields, namely name, Blog Name and Blog URL, though these are optional.

Please note, your information will not shared with any 3rd party organisation.

* These fields are optional

Feedback

If you have any feedback regarding the Blogging Tips Newsletter please leave a comment and let me know what you think

Thanks,
Kevin

There is wifi in the room however the signal is very low and to use it you need to sign up with some Bulgarian internet company. I tried to do this but the whole registration process was in Bulgarian and I simply could not decipher it (the Bulgarian alphabet is similar to the Russian one with many symbols and letters you never see in Roman script). I asked the receptionist if they could help but since the wifi company has nothing to do with the hotel she couldn’t really help. Thankfully, the hotel has an internet cafe on the first floor and the speed is pretty quick. It’s a busy part of the hotel so it isn’t the most pleasant environment to sit and write posts so I’ll probably not write any posts in the next two weeks as I don’t want to publish rushed posts. I of course want to relax and enjoy myself here – it is a holiday afterall!

Dont worry though, BloggingTips will still be updated every week. Our regular writing team will still be posting and I’ve had a lot of guest post submissions in the last few days too so most of you will probably not even realise I was gone

Turns out the math comment spam protection plugin was still activated but the field had been removed from the comments.php file at one point. This resulted in an error of no spam protection being completed even though you didn’t ask for it, frustrating to say the least.

I like the math comment plugin however I’ve found out that if someone does forget to complete the spam field and then clicks back on their browser, their comment is not saved and they have to type it all again. This happened to me on another site and it was incredibly annoying so I have removed it for now (until I find a better plugin).

Once again, apologies for comments being broken the last few days. We had tested comments the day before and it seemed fine so I didn’t think that could be a problem.

Thanks again to Mani for pointing this out to me